These are fantastic machines. I've had 2 Capresso Superautomatics over the past 8 years. The first was a used one that we had for about a year before it had to go in for service, we sold it three years later when we moved. The second, our Impressa S9 is about 4 years old now. We purchased it new and it's never been in for service. We make 2 4 Cappuccinos/Lattes daily.The Good: Easy to use, setup is easy. I suggest reading the S9 review on Coffee Geek to get an idea of how you want to setup your machine, depending on what drinks you create most often. The machine has many adjustments and the default factory settings may not get you what you expect. The machine warms up quickly and can be programmed to come on automatically, so it will be ready when you walk into the kitchen. It holds a lot of water and a fair amount of coffee beans. It has a bypass for the coffee so that you can put in your own ground coffee for such things a decaf or if you're trying different beans or using an external grinder. Brew temperature is excellent and consistent.
The Neutral: It does require regular maintenance; empty the grounds, empty the water tray, clean the grounds from within the machine (we do this once a week), cleaning the brew groups with the special tablet (usually once a month), changing the water filter and descaling (usually every 2 3 months). The good news is that many of these tasks are automated.
The Bad: It takes a lot of trial and error to get the taste that you want. The coffee puck size is smallish (46mm, vs. around 54mm on most professional machines), the brew time is too fast (13 15 seconds vs. ~25 30 seconds on a professional), the path from the ground coffee to the brew head is too long (i.e. what you just ground will show up in the 2nd or 3rd cup), there is no way to turn off the pre-infusion. Getting micro-foam for your cappuccino takes practice.
That said this machine will produce an excellent espresso, cappuccino, latte, etc. if you're willing to experiment and set it up to suit your taste.
There are numerous comments in the other reviews here that I'd like to discuss.
Customer Service: Don't know what people are expecting. You wouldn't expect a new car if you had problems once your warranty is up? Our experience is that they are excellent; they do a thorough job and provide you with a machine that's been thoroughly tested. Yes, if you only needed to clean the contacts on the drip tray the $375 is pricey but they don't know that they go through the entire machine. This is about as good as Customer Service for a Consumer Product gets. DIY parts and instructions are available, google buessert.de, you can purchase parts however, you'll need special tools, have excellent manual dexterity, and a lot of patience.
Maintenance: You'll need to follow the regular drip tray emptying, grounds emptying, removing extra grounds from inside the machine, Keep the drip tray contacts clean, the regular internal cleaning cycle with the special tablet, and regular water filter changes. Not difficult, but does require effort.
Beans: We've tried many, many different coffee beans. Anyone who says they can't get a good espresso or cappuccino hasn't explored enough beans (or varied their setting per coffee geek). Because of the limitations listed above, the beans that give you good results will be different than what your local Barista uses. Our favorite, and what we think works best in this machine are the Intelligentsia Black Cat Classic Espresso beans but big CAVEAT not the ones sold on Amazon, buy directly from intelligentsia otherwise you'll probably get beans that are anywhere from 4 weeks to 3 months old. Buy directly and get beans that have been roasted within the last few days yes, it makes a difference. Our second choice, are the Lavazza Pienaroma, and yes these will be older beans but we think brew a decent cappuccino. If you have oily beans, you should not be using them in this machine, they are over roasted, and they will tend to clog up the machine as they will stick in various places remember the ground coffee moves through the machine by gravity. You'll need to pay much closer attention to where the grounds are accumulating and make sure to wipe them away. We only use the finest grind setting and really wish there was one finer setting.
Water: Many folks indicate that they are using bottled water or filtered water. That's great and good water will help. The machine is sensitive to the Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) in the water (Amazon sells a number of TDS meters you can use to test your water) and the filter will remove much of those as well as many other things in the water. RO water will typically have TDS in the 5 10 ppm range and will not leave behind much residue inside the machine. If you have this, you can probably use a single filter for several times and just rinse it when the machine says to change the filter. If you have water that's above about 40 ppm (that's most of us, including bottled water users) you'll need to change the filter and run the descale program regularly. Our water is whole house RO and typically has about 80 ppm TDS (need this to keep from dissolving our copper pipes) and we typically keep a filter for two cycles, and then replace it.
Foamed Milk: It's difficult to achieve good microfoam, but not impossible. The frothXpress Plus system will typically not do a good job at this, it's better for warming the milk. Manually frothing milk can achieve adequate results. The biggest variable we've found is the milk. If you're not getting reasonable results try different milk. Typical 2% major store brand bought milk does not do a good job for us. We usually end up with milk from smaller Dairies. Google "Scott Rao steam milk" and watch his video and practice with water and a drop of soap until you get it. Then you have a fighting chance. It's easy to achieve big bubbly frothy milk but that's not what you want.
Temperature: I see a number of complaints about temperature in the reviews. The espresso comes out at a pretty constant 194º F if you've set the temperature to the "hot" setting that's too hot to drink without scalding your mouth. But you're getting like 1.5 ounces of liquid from an espresso shot and then if you're making a cappuccino, another 3.5 ounces of milk at 150º F. If you're putting this into a cold ceramic cup, yes it will be tepid; all the heat will be going into heating up the cup. You've got to pre-heat the cup before you add the coffee. Fill your cold cup up with hot water from the tea portion and let it warm the cup, then discard the water and make your drink you'll have a very hot cappuccino. The frothXpress Plus system produces heated milk that's in the 150º F range and manually frothing the milk you can go up as high as you want, which will scald the milk. With the frothXpress Plus system it's very important that the top on the container is in tight and the small hole in the lid is the only place where air can get in, otherwise you will not get good results. So I'm not sure why folks are getting cold drinks.
If you're willing to spend some time and setup your machine (and for this kind of money, you should) you'll get a very acceptable espresso/cappuccino. But you do have to read the manual and experiment. I hope this helps some folks out and sheds some light on some of the issues described in other reviews.
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We've had the S9 for over 5 years now. The customer service is pretty good when you have a maintenance question. Makes the most of a good coffee bean by ensuring you get a hot espresso with a lot of real crema. Use strong non-oily beans for the best coffee in the world. Brands I have used include Intelligentsia, Lutz, Kimbo, Lavazza, and others. Again, stay away from oily beans. What I really like about this machine is you can make other coffee (in addition to the beans you have loaded in the machine). It has a one button function to override the beans you already have loaded and lets you add grounds to a compartment at the front of the machine. For example, I have Dunkin Donuts decaf grounds on hand for folks that want a decaf coffee. I also have decaf espresso grounds.
Keep up with the maintenance on this machine and it will take care of you. It's pricey, so just keep up with the maintenance to get your money's worth. The machine will let you know when it's time to change the water filter, clean using the tablets, and de-calcify.
After having a coffee from this machine, we never go to Starbucks or any other coffee shop for coffee. Their stuff will not compete. Maybe over 5 years, we broke even on this machine by the $$ we saved by not spending 4-5 bucks on double lattes. Good luck with your choice.
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I have used capresso coffee makers for 10 years, starting with the basis C1000. The quality of the coffee is outstanding. I have had the impressa S9 for about 7 years. My problem is the repair record.My husband and I average 6 cups of coffee per day for the two of us. I follow the maintenance instructions scrupulously, i.e. change the Claris filter and use the cleaning tablet on schedule.(I might add that the filters cost $16 and need to be changed monthly. I also use filtered water.
However, on a yearly basis there is a function failure of one kind or another and I need to send it to the factory in Closter, New Jersey. The flat rate for the Impressa is $275. The warranty on the service is for about 60 days. I have been unable to find a local repair service that will repair it. The last minor function failure was about 5 months ago and it was returned to my home within 4 days after I mailed it. This tells me the repair is limited to the particular problem and there is not a general inspection for further potential problems. Now, 5 months later< I am getting a "Malfunction 4" message and I am unable to make coffee. The response of the company? You guessed itthe fee will be another $275.
I decided to give up on my beloved Impressa and find another product.I spent hours researching Automatic Espresso machines. After reading the specs and reviews, the S9 seemed like it was the Gold Standard of espresso machines. But is it?...
I used the machine for an average of 2-4 espressos per day.
ConstructionEverything you see and touch on the machine is plastic except the cup warming tray on top of the machine, and the tray under the espresso/coffee cup. For over $2,000 I think everything that looks stainless...should be. The machine itself is heavy so there must be metal inside.
Foamthe foam produced with the foam attachment is sub-par. Although not large, the foam bubbles are not micro. As the nozzle is used over time (approx. 3 months), you will notice the bubbles become progressively larger. Dis-assembly and cleaning helps but they are still too large. I believe the machine does not produce adequate steam pressure to make "coffee house" style foam. You will not be making any foam designs with this machine!
SteamAs mentioned, it's not sufficient. It's slow to produce.
CoffeeThe coffee is not drinkable. No matter what settings are used it just tastes like watered down bitter coffee. Almost any $20 drip coffee maker is better. If I included the coffee quality in the rating, it would have to drop one more star.
EspressoI could not adjust the grinder to a setting much smaller than medium because of a design fault. If the grinder is adjusted too small (espresso size), the coffee beans will not flow. It has nothing to do with the coffee bean oil. After using the machine for 6 months, coffee bean oil did cause the machine to indicate beans must be added when there were still beans in the hopper. It is easy to rectify, just keep extra beans in the hopper. After adjusting the grind size to medium, it works. It uses more beans than it should but, I love the espresso! I am spoiled now. I can't drink regular coffee because I love latte's from this machine. This is why my rating on the machine is higher than 1 star.
ElectronicsReally cool. This machine indicates when it needs cleaning, beans, water, descaling, old grinds removed etc. It comes with a 1 time use stick to test water hardness. Once i set the hardness the machine indicates when it needs to be decalcified. All steamers need this done at some point. For me, it's every 3 months. I don't have soft water nor really hard water from the tap but I use filtered water which is a not hard at all.
ServiceWithin the first 6 months the machine quit. I followed the troubleshooting guide in the book without positive results. I called customer service, they sent me a shipping box with return postage. I didn't pay for any shipping to or from New York. I'm in California. They said they refurbished the machine. All Free! That was great customer service! Within 2 months steam progressively got worse and worse with less and less steam until finally it didn't foam at all. And it began leaking. Mostly it leaked into the coffee tray but sometimes it leaked under the tray. My mistake was waiting. I did not want to do without my latte for 6 weeks again. Because it was now outside the 1 year warranty period, I had to pay $275 to have Jura fix the problem they created with their repair! I argued with the service person to no avail.
MiscellaneousDue to the "duel heating element" I thought I could make one espresso while I steamed milk. Not so. The machine will only allow one function at a time. The machine is loud! People have to yell for me to hear them when speaking in the same room.
ConclusionI do not recommend this automatic espresso machine. I doubt any automatic machine will match the local espresso house's manual machine. For the almost $3,000 I paid for the machine, I should have bought a cheaper manual machine and spent the rest on a mini vacation.
Update: The machine is now about 3 yrs old. It quit again. The fancy electronic brain is telling me the tray needs to be emptied even though it was just emptied. Of course the machine is out of warrantee and after sending it back for repairs 2 times already, I'm done! Customer service says I need to return it again for "refurbishing". I am not spending another $275 to have them "refurbish" the machine again. I just did it 6 months ago. Their "refurbished" warrantee is only 3 months. That's a rediculous joke! You may have figured it out, I am not happy!
New Update: I talked to a "Jura Capressi Guru" I found on the internet. He said to clean the electric tabs in the back of the waste tray with soap and a toothbrush. It worked! I've got my machine working again. Why couldn't customer service make the suggestion. Maybe they wanted another $275?
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We had a horrible experience dealing with Jura Capresso customer service.After buying a $1200 Jura Capresspo F8 machine and using for 3 years, we had to fix it once (paid additional $230), a bit less than year later we started suffering water leaks now. So we claled in to ask for a repair with no charges, and after long conversation essentially my wife was told by MR Rodriguez (lead CS @JC) in a very disrespectful manner that if "we did not like it, we'd better buy another machine/brand" or pay the @230 for another fix.
So, now we're following MR. Rodriguez (from Jura Capresso CS) advice and we'll probably buy a Gaggia Brera (or any other brand) cause we do not want to deal with Jura's horrible customer service ever again.
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